OTTAWA -- After months of the House of Commons Finance Committee being stalled over the opposition’s request for transparency around documents related to the WE Charity student grant controversy, the government is offering to resubmit unredacted versions in an effort to get the committee back to work.
It’s a compromise that came just minutes before Conservative MP and finance critic Pierre Poilievre came out to call for nearly the same thing.
In August, thousands of documents detailing the creation and implementation of an ultimately cancelled student summer grant program were made public after being requested by the committee, which was studying the controversy that erupted when WE Charity was granted the deal to administer the program.
The documents include memos, proposals, budgets and handwritten notes. However, some of the materials had been redacted by public servants within government, which the opposition has condemned, calling for the Parliamentary Law Clerk to be the one to make the necessary redactions.
After a series of motions, filibustered meetings, refusals to hear from the public service directly, and continued calls for the unredacted versions to be turned over in addition to providing further materials, Government House Leader Pablo Rodriguez announced Monday morning that the Liberals would be sending largely unredacted versions of the documents to the law clerk to look at and make his own assessment of what needs to be kept hidden and what the committee members should see.
“Finance committee must move forward,” tweeted Rodriguez. “It is time that the opposition sets partisanship aside and gets back to the important work of combatting the COVID-19 pandemic and protecting Canadians.”
While the government had said the initial redactions were “limited” and in respect of “legal obligations,” the new versions of the same paperwork provided over the summer will still include redactions for cabinet confidences and “unrelated material” according to the government.
Alternatively, the Conservatives, who continue to accuse the government of being engaged in a “cover up,” are proposing that the government divide up the documents, leaving out any cabinet confidence documents but allowing the law clerk to see what is behind the “unrelated” document redactions.
“Let him look at those documents that the government has blacked out, other than the cabinet confidentialities, and report back on whether this is a coverup, or whether the blackouts are legitimately justified,” he said.
One of the biggest drivers of this attempted compromise is that usually it is around this time of year the committee is seized with pre-budget hearings. The committee has yet to begin hearing from what is usually an onslaught of sector stakeholders about their ideas for where the 2021 fiscal year funds should be allocated.
In his press conference, Poilievre criticized the government over its inability to yet present a 2020 budget, despite 2021 now being around the corner. He said the stalling the Liberals have been doing at the committee over the WE documents is to blame for that committee not yet considering the serious economic situation the country is facing.
“Imagine you're a small business owner, you turn on television to find out what the finance committee is doing to save your business and you see a Liberal MP giving an extensive speech about the cartoon character Polkaroo in order to run down the clock, so that no one can find out what's behind the black ink on those WE documents,” he said.
In the September throne speech, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he would provide a fiscal update before the end of the year, with a budget to follow. As of the last “fiscal snapshot” Canada was on track to have a $343.2 billion deficit this fiscal year due in large part to the ‘wartime’ massive economic aid and stimulus spending.
With files from CTV News’ Sarah Turnbull
